Business Demography - Births and Deaths

Business births and deaths are produced by the Office for National Statistics within their Business Demography publication. Data are based on registrations and de-registrations for VAT and PAYE.

Please note that there has been a change in the reference period for these data from 2016 onwards. The Business Demography publication reference period records the number of active businesses over a period of a year. Up to 2016, this was measured from a single point in November in one year to a single point in November in the following year. For example, the 2015 publication measured the number of active businesses taken from a specific date in November 2014 to the same date in November 2015. From 2016 onwards, the reference period moved to December. This has helped bring the reference period closer to the calendar year, as recommended by the joint Eurostat and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) manual on business demography.

Please note that there has been an improvement made to these data. For the years 2016 to 2021, businesses that have neither VAT nor PAYE but do have a live company number have been removed from the figures. They have been removed because they may misrepresent business birth and death figures. ONS create these enterprises on the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) in order to monitor them, usually because they help to give the full picture on the enterprise group. Often these businesses do not have employment or turnover, but have some role in the enterprise group, perhaps as the parent of the group. This is in line with the vast majority of ONS business surveys which also exclude these cases.

Please note that registrations for 2007 increased substantially on 2006. It is likely that these figures partly reflect the impact of changes in tax rules in April 2007 surrounding Managed Service Companies. Businesses registered as Managed Service Companies at one address were previously excluded from this series; however following the change to the tax rules a number of these businesses have de-registered and re-registered as single entities elsewhere and this activity has been included in the series. For more information please see ONS' Business Demography.

The population estimates used to form the rates are sourced from the Mid-Year Population Estimates, published by the National Records of Scotland. The term 'per 10,000 adults' is defined as people aged 16 or over resident in Scotland.